In Milton Lumky Territory by Philip K. Dick

In The Novels of Philip K. Dick, Kim Stanley Robinson states that "In Milton Lumky Territory . . . is probably the best of Dick's realist novels aside from Confessions of a Crap Artist," and calls it a "bitter indictment of the effects of capitalism." Dick, on the other hand, in his forward, says "This is actually a very funny book, and a good one, too."

Milton Lumky territory is both an area of the western USA and a psychic terrain: the world and world-view of the traveling salesman. The story takes place in Boise, Idaho, with some extraordinary long-distance driving sequences in which our hero (young Bruce Stevens) drives from Boise to San Francisco, to Reno, to Pocatello, to Seattle, and back to Boise in search of a good deal on some wholesale typewriters. He falls under the spell of an attractive older woman (who used to be his school teacher) and Milton Lumky, a middle-aged paper salesman whose territory is the Northwest. And then Bruce and the others slowly sink into the whirlpool of his immature personal obsessions and misperceptions.

A compassionate and ironic portrayal of three characters enmeshed in a sticky web of everyday events, in a tension between love and money, with a basic failure to communicate, In Milton Lumky Territory stands out among Dick's early works.

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Philip K. Dick was born in Chicago in 1928 and lived most of his life in California. He briefly attended the University of California, but dropped out before completing any classes. In 1952, he began writing professionally and proceeded to write numerous novels and short story collections. He won the Hugo Award for the best novel in 1962 for The Man in the High Castle and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the year in 1974 for Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Philip K. Dick died on March 2, 1982, in Santa Ana, California, of heart failure following a stroke.

Unrated Critic Reviews for In Milton Lumky Territory

Publishers Weekly

Tor , $25.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1695-0First published in 1985 by a small press, this “realist” (read: not sci-fi) early novel from dystopian master Dick (1928–1982) bears the following introductory author’s note: “This is actually a very funny book, and a good one, too, in that the funny thin...

BC Books

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